


Draw Back the Curtain

by earis



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Apocalypse, F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-12
Updated: 2010-06-12
Packaged: 2017-10-10 02:23:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/94260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earis/pseuds/earis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone has a story about the Apocalypse</p>
            </blockquote>





	Draw Back the Curtain

"And then Richard, that's our neighbor dear, well, he broke into Marvin's toolshed and stole our weed whacker, then do you know what he did?"

"No, Mrs. Flores, what?" she asks.

"He shot Linda, that's his wife dear, with tranquilizer darts, tied her to a chair, the nice one that she just got reupholstered, and when she came to, he started whacking off her arms and legs with it. The whacker, not the chair."

"That's terrible!" she says, and it is. It's just not that surprising anymore. "And where were you, Mrs. Flores, when this happened?"

Mrs. Flores shifts in her straightjacket and stares down at her feet.

"Mrs. Flores, you know what we say here." Her voice is tender.

Mrs. Flores nods.

"What do we say here?" she asks.

"The truth shall set you free," whispers Mrs. Flores.

She makes her voice a little lower. "And do you understand what that means?"

Mrs. Flores nods half-heartedly. A tear escapes and winds its way down her cheek. "I'm sorry," she says. "I can't."

"Okay. Then we won't," she replies. "Not until you're ready."

Mrs. Flores gives her a small smile. "Maybe tomorrow?"

"If you're ready," she says. "Now lets get you to bed."

The whole state, some say the whole country, went completely crazy about a couple weeks back, and there are not enough jails or courts or psychiatric wards to deal with all the murders, deaths, and terrors that were unleashed. Some people are rebuilding houses and roads. Some people are organizing food and clothing donations to the major crisis centers. She's been trying to talk to the people who went the craziest, who did the worst things, who can no longer function. She only has a bachelor's in psychology and did one internship at a behavioral clinic, but the trauma center needs all the help they can get. Janet Flores had not only helped Richard Eddison butcher his wife with a weed whacker, she had used the remains to make soup. And Becky Rosen needs to understand her story. She needs to understand what happened. She knows parts of it, about demons and angels and maybe, just maybe, two brothers. She knows more than most people, but not enough.

A day later, her internet starts working again. _Can't stop the signal_, Becky thinks, a small moment of triumph in her day. When Becky gets home from the trauma center there are forty five unopened emails from Chuck sitting on her computer. The first forty four run from 'Lazarus Rising' to 'Swan Song', and the final message just says 'I'm sorry.' She opens that one first:

Bex-

Sorry about us. Take care of these, make sure they find a home. I'm going away for a while, it's your turn now.

L, Chuck

P.S. Take my house. I don't need it anymore.

It takes her a week, but she reads them all.

"You look tired, dear," says Mrs. Flores, full of concern. Mrs. Flores had three children. None of them have tried to contact her. Becky doesn't know if they're dead, afraid, or lost somewhere. Mrs. Flores hasn't mentioned them.

Becky smiles, "Don't try and change the subject, Mrs. Flores. Even I know that trick."

Mrs. Flores smiles back. "You're a smart cookie."

"There's one more thing I know," says Becky. "You didn't do anything wrong."

Mrs. Flores's face goes grey. She starts to shake her head and the movement rocks her whole body.

Becky sits next to her for the first time since they've met. She rubs Mrs. Flores's shoulders and tells her, over and over again, "It wasn't you. It wasn't you. It wasn't you."

That afternoon she quits, loads up her car with post-apocalyptic essentials, and drives herself to Chuck's house, her new house. She drives through the night, stopping only at a truck stop. She calls the waitress 'darlin' and 'accidentally' spills holy water on her when she's ordering a burger. Then she tries to give her big puppy dog eyes and apologizes with a large tip.

Chuck keeps a spare key under a fake turtle in his backyard.

When Becky gets inside, it's so disgusting she needs to vomit. She opts for the kitchen sink over the toilet. No way she's putting her face near whatever is growing in Chuck's bathroom.

She throws out everything except the wooden table, a few chairs, the appliances, and the liquor cabinet. She sleeps in her sleeping bag, eats off paper plates, and does nothing but clean and deal with the Supernatural series and her files from the trauma center. When she gets horny, she reads some Sam/Dean (which in her head she calls 'wincest', now that she knows their last name) and fingers herself into oblivion.

It's really hard to get books published during the Apocalypse. Becky tries to get in touch with Flying Wiccan Press, but Sera Seige is nowhere to be found. Everywhere else she can think of either is destroyed, bankrupt, or not interested. So she turns to the one place where she knows she can get the word out.

Supernatural is a small fandom, but she's a BNF and this isn't her first rodeo. She sets up a wiki, an rss feed, several livejournal communities, and a facebook group. She asks people to pretend that the current insanity gripping the world is part of the Supernatural 'verse and to send her everything they know. People are happy to oblige. **sosueme**, one of her longest fandom friends, was a graduate student in physics at MIT. She sends weekly updates from Boston, ranging from seismic readouts to police reports to interviews with all the MIT conspiracy theorists. **impala69**, the mod on one of the supernatural boards, takes pictures of what might be demonic omens in the Midwest; lighting storms, crop circles, cattle mutilations. Up in Vancouver, however, live her greatest allies, Demian and Barnes.

They quit their jobs as soon as shit started to go down, and they started hunting. She still can't quite believe it. They have guns and salt and spellbooks. And they tell her everything. In exchange for beta reading privileges, of course

"You know you're in this book, right?"

Becky sighs and shifts the phone, "Are you driving and dialing?"

"No, MOM," Demian snarks. "Barnes is at the wheel. And his taste in music sucks hard."

Becky laughs, "Shotgun shuts his cakehole, Demian."

"Yeah, yeah."

"So did you want to chat or have you got something juicy?"

Demian sighs, "We're on a hunt. People, campers mostly, have been turning to stone up in the Rockies. Any thoughts?"

"Stone, huh," she says, putting on her 'Bobby voice'. "There's a whole mess of crap that could be happening."

"What did we say last time, Becky?" Demian warns.

Becky pouts, "No more 'Bobby voice.'" She huffs. "Okay, turning people into stone. It could be some pissed off antisocial witch, but that would take a huge amount of power. Could also be some sort of nature spirit, I'll have to poke the internet a little about folk tales up there. My best guess, though, is some kind of monster. Basilisk, maybe, or a gorgon."

"Gorgons?" Demian sounded skeptical. "Like the Greek myths?"

"Maybe," says Becky. "You should probably stock up on mirrors."

"Mirrors?" says Demian.

"Yeah, mirrors. So you can see it without it seeing you. Idjits." And then she hangs up the phone. "Good luck boys," she whispers.

Four days later the phone rings again.

"Becky Rosen speaking."

"Ms. Rosen, this is Agent Morrison from the F.B.I."

"Uh," Becky freaks out. How quickly, she wonders, to drop off the grid? Even more than she has already, that is.

"Seriously Becky, you can't answer the phone like that anymore."

It's Barnes.

"Screw you, wannabe," she says.

He laughs. "Well, this wannabe just took out a gorgon."

"It was a gorgon? For reals? Are you guys okay?"

Barnes's voice is sweet. "We're good, thanks to your intel."

She lets herself blush. Just because she's alone and halfway to crazy, doesn't mean she can't be proud of herself. "Where are you guys going next?" she asks.

"No idea. Maybe back to Vancouver?"

"You guys could come down," Becky pauses. "If you wanted."

Barnes is silent.

"I could show you what I've been doing with the books." Even to her own ears, it sounds desperate. And stupid. And possibly suspicious.

"Let me talk to Demian about it," says Barnes, and then he hangs up.

The next evening, they're at her front door. She makes them come in uninvited, step over a line of salt, and stand in the middle of a Devil's Trap. She gives everyone, even herself, a shot of holy water, a scratch from a silver nail file, and a bit of grave dirt for their pockets.

"Sorry, boys. Can't be too careful."

They spend all night reading the books and looking at the work she's been doing on the manuscripts, getting them ready for the unveiling.

Demian gets to 'The Real Ghostbusters'. "Holy crap," he gapes. "That really was them."

Becky nods. "In the flesh."

He chuckles, "Barnes, you owe me a beer!"

When he gets to the end of the book, however, he's more than a little disgruntled. "We sound like rabid fans."

Becky looks at him, "We are rabid fans."

"Still," he says, "we could add in a line or two. Make ourselves more badass."

Something bright and blazing rises up inside of Becky. She narrows her eyes, "YOU will not change a SINGLE WORD."

Demian looks small to her then, and pathetic. He squirms and mutters, "It won't matter anyway. The world just got bitch-slapped, no one is going to care about a stupid story."

Becky feels light inside when she says, "This is EXACTLY when people care about a stupid story."

She launches www.winchestergospel.com on September 21, 2010. Every single book is available as a downloadable pdf. There is a voluntary paypal button. There is an apocrypha link to fanfiction communities and archives. Every song ever referenced, every work of art, every book, every fact is linked to the site. She digs up every real world reference to the Winchesters, and their exploits. Newspaper articles about missing children and suspicious murders, old FBI wanted posters, even the Ghostfacers. The hit counter starts slowly, but begins to climb exponentially.

The fans are grateful, for the most part. Some are suspicious, but since it's a small fandom, everyone knows about the con where a BNF hooked up with Carver Edlund, and she's got some loyal fannish minions to defend her and the site.

The next Supernatural convention has to be held at a large convention center in Chicago. Rinosetta's Pizza becomes the official convention headquarters, the place where everyone goes to swap stories, both fiction and non-fiction. A man and a woman named Derek and Jeanine show up, but don't really ever blend in. Becky sees the bulges in their waistbands and the wariness in their eyes and gives them preferential treatment. She sends over a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue to their hotel room with her information.

They come and see her about a week after the conference is over. They help her install security cameras (to scope out cops and 'shifters, says Derek), and they deliver boxes of books on the occult, including an actual witch's grimoire and a couple of the classic demonology works.

She tells them she's going out for milk and eggs and comes back with whiskey and a new mattress. The morning dawns foggy and cold, but the bed is large and their bodies are warm.

"I know this guy, Nikos" begins Jeanine.

Becky doesn't really want to wake up, but Jeanine's voice is insistent. "Yeah?" she asks sleepily.

"He lives a couple hours away. He's a genius with ink and spells." Jeanine's hand closes over Becky's hipbone. "You need more protection."

Derek takes her later that day while Jeanine reads through the Winchester Gospel. Nikos really is a genius, when Becky tells him who she is and what she wants, he gives her the Winchester anti-possession pentacle on her right hip and a pair of winged impalas on her shoulders. The animal, not the car.

"Guidance and transport through this world and the next," he says with a smile and charges her suspiciously little.

Before Derek and Jeanine leave, Jeanine takes her aside. "So, I've read the stories, the gospels. There's just one question I have, something missing from the books."

Becky looks at her. Then she gets it. "No."

"You don't even know what I'm going to ask," Jeanine says.

Becky crosses her arms over her chest. "I do, and you know it. If I told you, then you'd find him. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday. Someday you'll be up against something you need help with, and you'll go to him. And he won't turn you away. He can't turn you away. He'll give you everything he has, which by my count, isn't a heck of a lot."

Jeanine nods. "Just checking."

She starts getting calls from hunters other than Demian, Barnes, Derek, and Jeanine. She helps people, and in exchange, she makes them tell her stories.

The Ghostfacers visit her. They threaten to sue her for libel, citing an unflattering portrayal of them in the books. She tells them that Sam taught her how to shoot (he didn't, Jeanine did) and takes her shotgun out from the umbrella stand. They leave and the suit is dropped.

One day she comes home from the range and the demon named Crowley is sitting at her dining room table. She has a million questions. How did he get in here? Why is he alone? What does he want? What happened to him after Death gave up his ring? How did he survive?

"What's happening in the cage?" she asks.

Crowley shakes his head. "All we hear is the howling."

Becky cries that night for the first time. She cries for Mrs. Flores and Richard Eddison, who were possessed and forced to kill and eat their spouses. She cries for all the patients at the trauma center, and all the people everywhere who suffered for no good reason. She cries for **sosueme**, who used to have a family before the earthquake hit Boston and dumped Back Bay back into the bay. She cries for **impala69** who was looking at cattle mutilations in June and disappeared. She cries for Demain and Barnes, Derek and Jeanine, Bobby, Rufus, and all the other hunters, which, she now realizes, means that she's crying for herself.

But most of all, she cries for Sam and Dean Winchester. Who loved each other and lost each other. Who didn't even get to say good-bye. Who grabbed destiny by the balls and rewrote their own stories in order to try and give the world some sort of happy ending. Some sort of eucatastrophe.

She gets out of her bed and sits at the computer. She looks at all the stories that she has becomes the guardian of, that she has protected. They're pretty grim. She can't make anything better for real, but she can still come up with a potentially better scenario. They boys gave everything to the world, so that it might live. The least she can do is write them one crappy, fake, fan-fiction happy ending.

After all, didn't Chuck tell her, 'It's your turn'?

**Author's Note:**

> Post 5-22 fic. Beta'ed by Kristie.


End file.
